An Unexpected Connection
by emeraldgirl503
Summary: On a trip to LA with Rachel, Kurt barges through the connecting door between their hotel rooms... and finds someone who is most definitely not Rachel. (First meeting AU)


Kurt tugged his rolling suitcase through the closing hotel room door, letting it slam behind him. "Not bad, Rachel, not bad," he mumbled to himself as he surveyed the surprisingly spacious room. A large king-size bed dominated one wall, while a sleek modern desk and dresser sat against the other. The room was done in tasteful neutral colors, with just a pop of green on the bedspread.

Kurt still wasn't sure why Rachel had insisted on separate hotel rooms. They'd shared countless hotel rooms over the roughly 8 years of their friendship, not to mention sharing an apartment for the last 4, so it seemed a little silly to suddenly insist on having their own spaces now. Since Rachel's dads were paying for this NYADA graduation gift trip to LA, though, Kurt wasn't going to complain. Sure, he'd tried to insist on paying his own way a few times and would have pushed to share then, but her dads had insisted that he was doing them a favor and "ensuring their peace of mind" by going with Rachel, so Kurt had acquiesced. As he carefully hung his clothes in the closet, quickly filling the small space, he had to admit that having his own room had its perks.

Rachel had suggested they each take some time to settle in before meeting up to discuss dinner options. Before he'd started unpacking, he'd swung the connecting door between their rooms open, assuming Rachel would do the same when she was ready. When Kurt had finished meticulously hanging his clothing and caught the second half of a _Project Runway _episode and she still hadn't opened her door, Kurt lost his patience.

"Rachel!" he called, knocking loudly on the connecting door. "Rachel, open the door! I'm hungry, and you promised me dinner!"

She didn't answer, so Kurt slipped his phone out of his pocket and sent her a text. "What are you doing? Hurry up and finish unpacking. I'm hungry."

He waited a generous 2 minutes, with no reply.

"Rachel!" he tried again, knocking harder on the door. "Rachel, come on!"

When she still didn't answer, Kurt flopped back on the bed in frustration. He watched the dots between the hour and minutes on the clock blink steadily for 3 more minutes, then decided to make one final attempt at the door.

"Rachel!" he called more loudly, banging even harder on the door. It shifted a little beneath his hands, so he pushed harder. The door surprisingly swung open, so Kurt stepped through. The room was a mirror image of his, so when he didn't see Rachel, he started around the corner toward the bathroom. As it came into view, he saw it was closed.

"I thought we agreed to shower after dinner," Kurt called out…

…just as the door swung open and a gorgeous, toned, and completely naked man stepped out.

Kurt and the man froze in place, both too surprised to move. Then, as if reaching awareness of the situation at the same time, Kurt quickly turned his head away as the man quickly grabbed for a towel and wrapped it around his waist.

"You're not Rachel," Kurt observed to the far wall, feeling his face flaming red with embarrassment.

The man chuckled, and it was unfairly sexy, just like his body. "No, I'm not," he replied in a rich, smooth baritone. "I'm Blaine." He stepped toward Kurt and held out his hand, as if they were meeting under normal circumstances and not after Kurt had burst into his hotel room and seen him naked.

"Kurt. Kurt Hummel," Kurt stammered awkwardly. "I'm so sorry about this. My friend Rachel said she was in the room next door, and I assumed it was the connecting room, but clearly it's not, and I think the door was broken because it just opened…"

Blaine chuckled again. "It's fine," he interrupted, seeming completely unfazed by the situation. "No harm done. What brings you to Los Angeles, Kurt Hummel?"

Kurt tried not to focus on the fact that Blaine's gorgeous and impressively sculpted body was only covered by a tiny white hotel towel, leaving his chiseled abs and defined pecs on perfect display… still slightly damp and lightly dusted with just the perfect amount of dark hair, trailing down his abdomen toward his…

_Focus! _Kurt reprimanded himself. _He asked you a question!_

"Um…" Kurt's eyes started to stray down Blaine's body again, but he forced them back up to Blaine's face, "my friend, Rachel, the one who I thought was in this room?She and I just graduated from NYADA – it's a performing arts school in New York – and her dads gave her a trip to LA as a graduation gift, and they said I could come too, so we're just here for the week, exploring the sights and doing the tourist stuff and all that." Kurt was pretty sure he had spoken way too quickly to be understood, but he hoped Blaine had caught enough of it, because he didn't really have it in him to string any more sentences together. Not when the most gorgeous guy he'd ever seen in real life was standing a few feet away, clad in nothing but a skimpy hotel room towel.

"You're from New York too? I go to NYU!" Blaine said excitedly, completely unbothered by his lack of clothing and the fact that Kurt had literally just barged into his room.

"Really? What, um…" _Eyes up, Kurt! Eyes up! _"…what brings you to LA?"

"Oh, my brother lives out here, so I'm just visiting him for a week. I usually stay with him, but he just moved in with his girlfriend and I didn't really want to feel like a third wheel all week, so… here I am!"

_Here you are indeed, _Kurt thought flirtatiously as his eyes strayed downward, before quickly clearing the thought and once again averting his eyes from Blaine's chest. _That line didn't even make sense, Kurt! _he scolded himself internally.

Blaine didn't seem to notice Kurt's dilemma. "So you went to NYADA? That's so amazing. You must be an incredible performer. I auditioned, but I didn't get in, so I ended up at NYU…"

Kurt knew Blaine was saying something, but all he could focus on was the play of Blaine's muscles as he gestured and the way the towel was starting to slip ever-so-slightly downward. "Do you want to maybe put on some clothes?" he interrupted as he once again pulled his eyes toward tamer territory.

Blaine looked almost surprised to discover he was only wearing a towel. "Oh! Right. I'm sorry. My roommate's a model, so he's pretty used to walking around half-naked, and I guess I've gotten pretty used to it too. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, though."

"Uncomfortable doesn't even begin to cover it," Kurt muttered, acutely aware of the growing tightness in his pants as his eyes once again betrayed him and started wandering toward the curve of Blaine's ass, now prominently on display as Blaine reached into the closet for clothing.

Blaine turned abruptly from the closet. "What?"

Kurt flushed an even darker red when he realized he had said that out loud. "Nothing. I'm sorry. I should go."

"Wait! Why don't I get dressed and then take you…"

"Kurt?" Rachel's voice called from back in Kurt's room. "Kurt, where are you?" She appeared at the connecting door. "Kurt?" she asked in confusion, looking from him to Blaine, who was still standing in just a towel.

"Rachel? How did you…" Kurt stammered.

"You gave me a copy of your key, remember?" Rachel reminded him. She looked between them again. "What's going on here?"

When Kurt didn't reply, Blaine stepped forward. "Hi. I'm Blaine Anderson. There was a tiny mix-up, and Kurt ended up in here looking for you."

Rachel rolled her eyes at Kurt. "Did you pay attention to anything I said when we were waiting to check in? I told you I tried to get connecting rooms, but it didn't work out."

Kurt blushed slightly, embarrassed to have been caught. He _hadn't_ been paying any attention to Rachel. After 6 hours next to her on a plane, he'd reached the limits of his Rachel Berry attention span, so he'd just nodded blankly as she chatted, and the minute he'd finished checking in, he'd left her a copy of his key and dashed for the elevator while she was still checking in, thankful for a few minutes of peace.

Rachel glared at him, as if she knew exactly why he was blushing, then turned her attention to Blaine. "I'm Rachel Berry," she said, reaching out and shaking Blaine's hand, also apparently unaffected by Blaine's state of undress.

"I hear you just graduated from NYADA," Blaine said. "Congrats. That's a really prestigious school. You must be incredibly talented."

"I am," Rachel preened. "What do you do, Blaine Anderson?"

"I'm studying music theater at NYU."

Rachel looked intrigued. "NYU," she repeated, glancing from Kurt to Blaine with a slightly calculating look on her face. "Well, that's a decent program. It's no NYADA, of course, but I'm sure you have some talent."

"Rachel!" Kurt hissed.

Rachel shrugged. "What? Blaine's not offended, right, Blaine?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Anyway, I'm sure you have plans you need to get ready for…"

"No, actually, I was just about to ask Kurt if I could take you two to dinner. My brother's at some fundraiser tonight, so I'm on my own," Blaine interrupted.

Rachel looked over at Kurt and gave him a slightly scheming smile. "That's such a lovely offer, but I actually just came over to let Kurt know that I'm exhausted from our full day of traveling, and I think I'm just going to rest and recharge tonight. But you two should definitely go out. I know Kurt is dying to experience the LA restaurant scene." She shot Kurt a pointed look, but Kurt was still too frozen in embarrassment at the whole scene to reply.

Blaine turned to Kurt and gave him a charming smile. "I'd love to take you out for dinner, if you're up for it."

"He'd love that, right, Kurt?" Rachel said, coming over and not-so-subtly elbowing him in the ribs.

"Um… right. Yeah. That would be great," Kurt said, hip-checking Rachel so she stumbled away slightly.

"Great!" Blaine said, beaming at Kurt. "It's a date! I'll pick you up at the connecting door in a few minutes?"

Kurt nodded and followed Rachel back to his hotel room, swinging the connecting door closed behind them. "He's cute!" Rachel whispered. "And that _body_…" She whistled and fanned herself with her hand.

"Rachel! You shouldn't have been checking him out!"

"What, like you weren't?" she snapped.

"Rachel…" Kurt replied in an exasperated tone, but he couldn't deny it.

"Ha! You so totally were," she crowed triumphantly. "Anyway, unfortunately he's totally gay, so I guess that means he's all yours."

"Rachel, you don't know…"

Rachel waved him off. "Please. He was checking you out just as much as you were checking him out. He's _so _into you, not me." Just then, a knock sounded at the door behind Kurt. "I should go. Have fun!" Rachel sing-songed as she skipped toward the front door of the room and let herself out.

Kurt pulled the connecting door back open and found Blaine, impeccably dressed in a cheerfully bright polo, an adorable bowie, and skin-tight jeans that molded perfectly to what Kurt knew were impressively well-defined legs. "You ready?" Blaine asked.

Kurt nodded and followed him out the door.

Blaine led them to an amazing restaurant a few blocks away, off the beaten path. "It's a hidden treasure," he promised as he held the door open for Kurt. "I think you'll love it."

As he had predicted, Kurt did love it. He loved the food, the ambience, and most of all, the company. As Rachel had predicted, Blaine was interested in Kurt, if his shameless flirting was anything to go by. Throughout the meal, the conversation flowed easily and naturally, and Kurt discovered that he and Blaine had a lot in common. By the end of the meal, Kurt felt a deep connection to Blaine, and based on the way Blaine had laced their fingers together on the tabletop shortly after their appetizers, Blaine felt it too.

When they reached their hotel rooms, Blaine leaned in for a goodbye kiss… which quickly escalated into more kisses filled with heat and passion and intensity. As Kurt fumbled with his room key and dragged Blaine into his room, he finally fully appreciated the value of separate hotel rooms, and for the rest of the week, the connecting doors stayed wide open.

_[Author note: Just a random quick one-shot inspired by the amount of time I've spent in hotel rooms this week. Hope you enjoy it. Thanks for reading!]_


End file.
